LA RECUPERACIÓN DESPUÉS DEL TRAUMA

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Beyond recovery from trauma: implications for clinical practice and research - Thriving: Broadening the Paradigm Beyond Illness to Health http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0341/is_2_54/ai_53489955/print

The lifetime prevalence of major stressful events is high. In one study of

1,000

adults in four cities in the southeastern United States, for example, 21% of the sample reported a traumatic event (such as a robbery, assault, or traumatic death of a loved one) during the previous year and 69% reported the occurrence of at least one such event in their lifetimes (Norris, 1992). Although the frequencies of reported events vary across studies, "it is clear that exposure to 'traumatic' events is common in the lifetime of individuals, at least in the United States" (Green, 1994, p. 344). As has been made clear throughout this issue, perceiving and experiencing psychological growth, or thriving, as a result of the struggle with highly stressful events has been recognized clinically for some time (Caplan, 1964). More recent systematic investigations have confirmed the clinical impressions. The phenomenon of perceiving positive self-change originating in the struggle with trauma has been found to occur in a significant proportion of persons as a result of a wide range of disruptive events (O'Leary & Ickovics, 1995; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995). The major focus of this article is on implications of the work on thriving and posttraumatic growth for the working clinician and on areas in need of additional investigation.(1) This article draws implications in four areas: the relation of psychological well-being and thriving, a conceptual framework for the practicing clinician, a discussion of the encouragement of thriving in clients, and suggestions for further research. However, not all investigations of the links between growth and adjustment find a reliable connection (Joseph, Williams, & Yule, 1993). For example, an investigation of persons whose spouse or child had died in a motor vehicle accident (Lehman et al., 1993) failed to find a significant relationship between number of positive changes reported and psychological adjustment. A similar pattern of results was obtained in a study of persons suffering from rheumatoid arthritis (Tennen, Affleck, Urrows, Higgins, & Mendola, 1992). In that study, perceiving benefits in the struggle with the pain of arthritis was not related to measures of daily mood.


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